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Radhika Sharma\u2019s parents, Ramesh and Neelam Sharma, at their retirement party last June.
Damaged houses after devastating floods in Trishuli, Nuwakot district, Nepal, on August 27.
Suman Dahal was last heard from on Wednesday when he contacted his sister from a guest house near the Nepal-China border.<\/p>\n
Radhika Sharma\u2019s parents, Ramesh and Neelam Sharma, at their retirement party last June.
Radhika Sharma\u2019s parents, Ramesh and Neelam Sharma, at their retirement party last June.
Damaged houses after devastating floods in Trishuli, Nuwakot district, Nepal, on August 27.
Suman Dahal was last heard from on Wednesday when he contacted his sister from a guest house near the Nepal-China border.
(CNN) \u2014<\/strong> When floodwaters cascaded down<\/a> deep mountain gorges and swept into a Nepali valley on Wednesday,<\/a> it devastated already-vulnerable communities that sat along the swollen river, home to many ethnic groups and farmers.
But it also sent shockwaves across the world, with hundreds of foreign nationals unaccounted for. In households across the United States, India, Canada and more, people are desperately waiting for news of their missing loved ones \u2013 which include a doctor from Delaware, a New Zealand mother of two, and three young teenagers from the US and Australia. At least 389 people have been killed, according to Nepali police who did not specify how many are foreign nationals.
The region is popular for tourism, trekking, and religious pilgrimage to temples and sacred sites revered across multiple faiths \u2013 all of which draw large numbers of visitors during summer and early fall. It\u2019s also home to several foreign-backed hydropower projects.
Hundreds are also missing in neighboring China; the initial powerful landslide took place on its border with Nepal, with a mudslide then hitting China\u2019s Gyirong Port, a major land border crossing.
Officials have not yet released names of those confirmed dead or still missing, as rescue efforts continue Thursday. But the scale of the tragedy is becoming clear, with social media filled with countless pleas for help \u2013 including from the Nepali diaspora overseas.
Here\u2019s what we know so far about the people affected.
The hardest-hit communities in Nepal sit on the banks of the Trishuli river, which winds through several districts including Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading.
These districts are home to more than half a million people, according to recent census data. They represent a diverse range of ethnic groups including the Tamang, Gurung, and Newar people, some of whom have lived there for centuries.
Many rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, though some have also turned to tourism as the region has become increasingly popular for outdoor activities like trekking and rafting \u2013 as well as for religious tourism. Each summer, hundreds of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Bonpo pilgrims travel through the area en route to Tibet\u2019s sacred Mount Kailash.
But these communities are also highly vulnerable. Districts like Rasuwa have faced historically high poverty rates<\/a>, and are on the front lines of the climate crisis<\/a>, at risk of disasters like forest fires and landslides.
Many residents had spent years rebuilding their lives after Nepal\u2019s catastrophic 2015 earthquake,<\/a> which killed more than 8,000 people. Displaced from their homes, hundreds of families<\/a> resettled on the low-lying banks of the Trishuli river \u2013 only to face yet another horrific disaster on Wednesday.
Families across Nepal are now desperately seeking news of loved ones who were in the affected areas, who range from healthcare workers to tour operators.
Asmita Dahal, who lives in the capital Kathmandu, told CNN her family was \u201choping for a miracle\u201d for her missing younger brother, 21-year-old Suman Dahal. Suman works for a tour group bringing pilgrims to Mount Kailash, and had been preparing to return to Kathmandu from Timure, a small town on the Trishuli riverbank.
\u201cWe are worried his bus might have been swept away in the flooding, we just don\u2019t know,\u201d Asmita said. The last thing her brother had said to her on Wednesday was: \u201cSee you in the morning.\u201d
The disaster is also reverberating among the Nepali diaspora worldwide, who number more than 2.1 million,<\/a> and are now scrambling to contact people from thousands of miles away.
Pema D. Gurung, who owns a Nepali restaurant in New York, said he doesn\u2019t know whether his many friends in Rasuwa have survived. \u201cIn my mind and in my heart, I\u2019m hoping my friends are alive,\u201d Gurung told CNN. He\u2019s been unable to contact them because the flood cut off connectivity; his friends in Kathmandu haven\u2019t been able to reach anybody in the area, either.
Rojina Dhungana, a resident in Ottawa, Canada, woke up on Wednesday to the news that her hometown on the Trishuli riverbank had been swept away. Thankfully, her parents were safe \u2013 but many of her former neighbors and classmates are missing.
On social media, \u201ceverybody I knew \u2013 my friends, my relatives, my community \u2013 everybody was looking, like \u2018Help, help, help, this person is missing!\u2019\u201d she said.
At least 517 foreign nationals are among the missing in Nepal, according to the Nepal Tourism Board, and another 260 in China according to authorities there.
This includes at least 178 Indian nationals, many of whom were on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash. There are also 53 Ukrainians, 35 Australians, 33 British, 25 Canadians, and smaller numbers of people from more than two dozen other countries, according to Nepal\u2019s tourism board. The US State Department said 90 Americans are missing and Malaysia\u2019s foreign ministry said 55 of its citizens are missing. Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry said 56 Ukrainians remain missing.
Meanwhile on the Chinese side of the border, at least 260 foreign nationals are among the 558 missing, according to state media.
Sydney-based couple Uday and Kripa Shivamurthy were on a three week pilgrimage to Mount Kailash with a group of people \u2013 a trip they took every few years. As they were returning home, they were waiting to cross the immigration border from China to Nepal at 9:05 a.m. Disaster struck just ten minutes later, their niece Navya Nataraj told CNN.
\u201cWe have been getting conflicting reports. But then today they released aerial images\u2026,\u201d Nataraj said. \u201cWe are distraught and devastated.\u201d
Many of the missing were tourists \u2013 including teenagers. A 14-year-old American girl, and two Australian boys aged 12 and 14, were part of a tour group that\u2019s unaccounted for, according to the tour company.
Missing American teen Rashi Shashidharan\u2019s uncle Shekhar Agrawal described feeling \u201chelpless\u201d in his search for Rashi and her mother Rekha Shashidharan.
Agrawal told CNN that the pair had been traveling together and he had last spoken to them at around 7:30 a.m. local time on Wednesday, just over an hour before the floods struck.
\u201cAfter that, there was radio silence, nothing, no contact whatsoever.\u201d
According to Agrawal, his niece had been planning to do the trip solo and had been \u201cvery excited\u201d about it. Her mother eventually decided to accompany her so that she wouldn\u2019t be traveling alone.
American Radhika Sharma said her parents, Ramesh and Neelam Sharma, had been among those on a religious pilgrimage. Their tour company last made contact with the group of pilgrims Wednesday morning, after they reached the border with Tibet.
Sharma hasn\u2019t heard from them since. This has been the \u201cworst 24 hours\u201d of her life, she said on Thursday.
All nine South Koreans were workers sent to Nepal for a hydropower plant under construction, according to Korean officials. Nepal has pushed in recent years to tap into its massive hydropower potential, often with investments from regional partners like China and India.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & \u00a9 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN\u2019s Alea Motwane, Jeff Winter, Bhadra Sharma, Max Saltman, Sandi Sidhu and Hira Humayun contributed to this report.
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